Are you considering adopting a child from overseas?
To be an adoptive parent is the most wonderful, challenging and rewarding experience in the world!
The joy of holding your child in your arms or hearing them calling 'Mum' across the playground, is priceless. It is such an amazing feeling that I want everyone to share it! I want you to know this feeling.
I want you to find your child, to give him or her your love.
Have you been touched by the plight of the 163 million orphans around the world?
Are you someone who has love and security to give a child from another country?
Have you tried to adopt from the UK but have been waiting and waiting and waiting?
Have you tried and failed IVF and are searching for an alternative route to complete your family?
If so then you have come to the right place!
This is Epani - she is an Ebola orphan in Sierra Leone and is looking for a family.
I was in your position. Now, I have the most beautiful child in the world. It was not easy for me which is why I am making it easier for you. From my experience and that of the 200 people I have provided help too I bring you valuable and vital information that will guide you in making the wonderful decision to adopt a child in need from overseas and to successfully bring them home to the UK.
Do not be put off adoption by all the negative things that you read. Adoption is just another way to create a family. There are children who need you to be their parents.
Adoption is an empowering and very fulfilling human act that has been recognised throughout history as an admirable and honourable thing to do.
The word 'adopt' comes from the Latin 'adoptare' - to choose. To take by choice into a relationship, especially to take voluntarily a child from other parents as ones own child.
There are many forms of adoption - adopting a step child, adopting a relative, adopting a domestic child and increasingly adopting a child from another country. There are many different children available to adopt: True orphans who have lost both their parents through illness, accident or other tragedy; children who have been abandoned or relinquished as their parents were unable to care for them and children who are at risk and have been removed from their birth families by social services.
In the UK most of the children available for adoption are in the last category. They are placed in foster homes until suitable parents can be matched with them. It is reported that the average 5-year-old in the UK has been in 5 foster homes. Many people who are thinking about adoption, initially look into domestic adoption, but it can be difficult. Although new government policies are putting better processes in place, the time frames are long and the chances of adopting a very young child is rare although it is possible. There was a strict policy of race and ethnicity although this has now been abolished. UK domestic adoptions are 'open' adoptions where the birth family has contact with the adopted child, which does not suit many families.
Fortunately, we are now able to look beyond our borders to find a child to give a home to. And there are hundreds of millions of children who are in need of a loving home. Lovely healthy, bright and happy children from Ethiopia, India, Bulgaria, China, Philippines.... it is possible to adopt from almost anywhere if you fulfill the criteria and there is not a moratanium on the country.
Each year less then 100 children from all over the world are adopted into the UK, this is the lowest rate in Europe and way behind France, Spain and Italy who adopt over 1000 children a year each. This is partly due to the sever lack of quality information available in the UK and I know many people give up because it is too difficult. It is not difficult - it is challenging and as we all know anything worth while is worth fighting for. But I am here to help you with that challenge.
And that is why I have created International Adoption Guide.
